Wednesday, September 14, 2016

On September 11, a truly disturbing video went viral of Hillary Clinton stumbling, being propped up, and losing her shoe as she was dragged into a waiting van—and my heart broke for her. Not for her ambitions to be the first female president, because I will not be voting for her and I believe that just really wanting to be the first female president is not a good enough reason for everyone to let you be the first female president.

But my heart broke for her as a mom and as a daughter. Since at 40, I am now at that point in life where my own parents are getting on in years and have medical problems. I felt bad for Hillary Clinton. I pitied her. And then I got angry.

What the heck is wrong with her daughter, Chelsea, that she is not stepping in and telling her mom, the campaign, and the entire political world that her mother is sick and that she should not be put through all of this? Chelsea's just a few years younger than me, with children of her own. While our financial and social positions are light years apart, Chelsea and I are in the same boat when it comes to having older parents with clear health problems and finding ourselves in that transition period where we start becoming caregivers to the people in our lives who once gave such good care to us....

But I don't get why Chelsea says nothing, watching her mom's body give out on her in such a spectacularly degrading and demeaning way while cell phone cameras capture it all. That woman in the blue pantsuit losing her shoe in public is not just a presidential candidate or a gravy train for Chelsea: that is HER MOM.

Where is Chelsea's compassion and love for her mom? Not her mother's ambitions. Not her family's quest to retake the White House they seem to feel belongs to them. Not her political party's hunger for power. Where is Chelsea Clinton's basic, primal, human need for her mom to be healthy, safe, and okay? Why isn't she demanding her mom get the care she so obviously needs?